January 1st, 2017 by LaoAmericans | Comments Off on A Wise Woman On Your Side

My purpose is not only to help, but to empower women. There was a time when I considered packing everything up to go volunteer with the Peace Corps. Becoming a lawyer was a practical option because of my family obligations.

February 28th, 2016 by LaoAmericans | Comments Off on Matthew Rizzie for Lieutenant Governor

We have a moral responsibility to ensure that social programs are available to our most vulnerable citizens, jobs and the opportunity for economic prosperity is accessible to all of our hardworking families, higher education is affordable.

November 26th, 2015 by LaoAmericans | Comments Off on Ambassador Clune’s Optimism for Laos

Ambassador Daneil A. Clune and his wife Judy speak to a child in a school that benefits from the World Food Program run McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program (IFEP) in Chom-Ong village, Oudomxay Province

April 14th, 2012 by LaoAmericans | Comments Off on Help Search for Lao Family

I was adopted by an American family when I was approximately 6 months old. No birth record is available. My pediatrician, Dr. Karen Olness, is my adoptive mother. Her husband, Hakon Torjesen, was a diplomat working at the Lao Embassy at the time of my adoption in 1968.

November 19th, 2011 by LaoAmericans | Comments Off on Gifts of Gratitude

“Now that you have the gift of a school by our kind brothers and sisters in America, it is your responsibility to fill up the classrooms, to get educated so you can get out of poverty. Do not take their gifts for granted. Use it.”

December 18th, 2009 by Siamphone Louankang | Comments Off on Traveling to Laos for the first time

I spent nearly two years focused primarily on one thing: to travel to Laos for the first time. When I finally went this February, I felt like the whole of my life had built up to that moment. I don’t know how I can describe the enormity of the experience with only words …

December 18th, 2009 by LaoAmericans | Comments Off on Remembering Laos from New York

As I struggled with much effort to recall the memories of my Laotian youth, I discovered that they were slowly becoming flashes and short blurry images, fading into the unrecoverable depths of my mind. I held on to the ones I could. I oftentimes could not distinguish between my dreams and my real memories, for the amount of time that I focused on dreaming of Laos surpassed that of my actual time in Laos.

May 1st, 2009 by Siamphone Louankang | Comments Off on Daraphon Souvanna Phouma Stieglitz, community activist

Many descendants of King Sisavang Vong left Laos after the monarchy came to an end, several re-establishing their lives in Western Europe and North America. One of his descendants, great-granddaughter Dara Stieglitz, now leads an active life in the Garden State of New Jersey.